Hemoglobin Oxidation Studies in Diabetics Blood Comparing the Effect of Sodium Nitrite vs. Amyl Nitrite

Comparative studies between sodium nitrite and isoamyl nitrite in nitrite induced methemoglobin formation of diabetic's blood have been undertaken. First the effect of sodium nitrite on human Type 2 diabetics' blood was undertaken using non diabetics' blood as the control group. These studies revealed that diabetics erythrocytes were oxidized at apparently the same rate as the control blood (P>0.05). The sodium nitrite mean oxidation time ± SEM of diabetics blood was 3.5 ± 0.18 min (sample size (n) is 22) and the mean oxidation time ± SEM of the non diabetics blood was 3.5 ± 0.16 min (n is 22). Next it was revealed that diabetics erythrocytes were oxidized by amyl nitrite at a significantly greater rate than control erythrocytes (P<0.05). The mean oxidation time ± SEM of the diabetics blood was 1.5 ± 0.05 min (n is 20) whereas the mean oxidation time ± SEM of the non diabetics blood was 3.1 ± 0.12 min (n is 20). Thus, these studies demonstrate that while diabetics blood has an enhanced susceptibility to oxidation to methemoglobin by isoamyl nitrite compared to the control group when sodium nitrite is used both diabetics and control blood are oxidized at the same rate. This difference could be attributed to the fact that sodium nitrite reactions with oxyhemoglobin are sigmoidal in nature and involve an induction or lag phase, whereas the isoamyl nitrite reactions with oxyhemoglobin are an immediate reaction wherein a rectangular hyperbolic curve is generated. This probably means that isoamyl nitrite has greater accessibility to the heme crevice especially in the diabetic presumably due to glycation induced structural modifications present in Hemoglobin A1C (HbA1C).